Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2022 Aug 10:9:939050.
doi: 10.3389/fmolb.2022.939050. eCollection 2022.

Alternating exosomes and their mimetics as an emergent strategy for targeted cancer therapy

Affiliations
Review

Alternating exosomes and their mimetics as an emergent strategy for targeted cancer therapy

Lokesh Chandra Mishra et al. Front Mol Biosci. .

Abstract

Exosomes, a subtype of the class of extracellular vesicles and nano-sized particles, have a specific membrane structure that makes them an alternative proposition to combat with cancer through slight modification. As constituents of all most all the primary body fluids, exosomes establish the status of intercellular communication. Exosomes have specific proteins/mRNAs and miRNAs which serve as biomarkers, imparting a prognostic tool in clinical and disease pathologies. They have efficient intrinsic targeting potential and efficacy. Engineered exosomes are employed to deliver therapeutic cargos to the targeted tumor cell or the recipient. Exosomes from cancer cells bring about changes in fibroblast via TGFβ/Smad pathway, augmenting the tumor growth. These extracellular vesicles are multidimensional in terms of the functions that they perform. We herein discuss the uptake and biogenesis of exosomes, their role in various facets of cancer studies, cell-to-cell communication and modification for therapeutic and diagnostic use.

Keywords: biomarker; exosome; exosome mimetics; targeted delivery; therapeutics.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Author MS was employed by Betterhumans Inc. The remaining authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Ultrastructure of exosome showing its composition.
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Scheme of exosome biogenesis and secretion.

Similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Al-Nedawi K., Meehan B., Micallef J., Lhotak V., May L., Guha A., et al. (2008). Intercellular transfer of the oncogenic receptor EGFRvIII by microvesicles derived from tumour cells. Nat. Cell. Biol. 10 (5), 619–624. 10.1038/ncb1725 - DOI - PubMed
    1. An T., Qin S., Xu Y., Tang Y., Huang Y., Situ B., et al. (2015). Exosomes serve as tumour markers for personalized diagnostics owing to their important role in cancer metastasis. J. Extracell. Vesicles 4, 27522. 10.3402/jev.v4.27522 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Antimisiaris S. G., Mourtas S., Marazioti A. (2018). Exosomes and exosome-inspired vesicles for targeted drug delivery. Pharmaceutics Vol. 10, E218. 10.3390/pharmaceutics10040218 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Are W. W. (2016). Review communication by extracellular vesicles : Where we are and where we need to go. Cell. 164 (6), 1226–1232. 10.1016/j.cell.2016.01.043 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Balacescu O., Sur D., Cainap C., Visan S., Cruceriu D., Manzat-Saplacan R., et al. (2018). The impact of miRNA in colorectal cancer progression and its liver metastases. Int. J. Mol. Sci. 19 (12), 3711. 10.3390/ijms19123711 - DOI - PMC - PubMed